Hackneyed
by ChidoriQueen
Summary: She vanished from their lives- from a world that's not anymore beautiful with her in it. Himari-centric one-shot, born out of my infatuation with her. References The Fault In Our Stars, by the fabulous John Green.


In the still of the night, Himari Takakura holds a frail hand out in front of her, auburn hair splayed in a very Sleeping Beauty-esque way across her pillow, and compares her existence to glass. According to popular belief, glass is fragile, glass can be shattered with a single push, glass is the proverbial blind man who is afraid of the dark. Something like that.

But what she doesn't understand is why everyone seems to forget about Plexiglas.

After all, it has "glass" (minus a letter) in its name. Perhaps the altogether very necessary prefix of "Plexi" somehow distorts the meaning and muddies the cliche, metaphorical significance of associating "fragility" with "glass". Coupled with her rambly, exhaustion-induced thoughts, it's difficult to piece together and she wonders why the universe has forgotten such a blatantly obvious thing.

Plexiglas sells for $52 a square, according to a Google search (she is far too lazy to convert it to yen). It is a "transparent thermoplastic" (source: Wikipedia), and is frequently used as a "shatter-resistant" substitute for glass.

Something about the phrase resonates with Himari. She smiles her half-smile, broad face illuminated by the whitish glow of her computer screen. To the cooing of the owls, she, unable to stop the warmth from spreading to her chest, whispers in awe, "Shatter-resistant, shatter-resistant, shatter-resistant."

It's beautiful. She's not just glass anymore, no longer labeled by a painfully-hackneyed phrase she cannot ever claim to truly understand.

She's Plexiglas. And not just in the bulletproof sense.

Plexiglas forms a barrier. Between the pranker and the pranked; a flustered taxi driver and a forgetful Yo-Yo Ma, or perhaps an exhausted one and an unacknowledged Joshua Bell. It's solid, and unshatterable, just like the aforementioned (not to mention extremely reliable) source.

An invisible wall has built its unshatterable self around her smiles. She doesn't have any idea how it appeared, or why it refuses to crumble, but it's there, and she feels it in the front lobe of her left side brains and her appendix and her large intestines.

Hazel from _The Fault In Our Stars_ described herself as a "grenade", told her parents she wanted to "minimize the casualties". Himari agrees wholeheartedly with the notion, except that, for her, at least, it's the other way around. Her friends from before faded away from her life before she had the chance to properly say good-bye, with enough hasty excuses and insincere apologies to last her her very-short lifetime. She doesn't complain about it- it's what fate designated, and who is she to argue with fate?

It's a less selfless thing, really- trying minimize personal hurt rather than everyone else's; a scrambled attempt to piece together a heart that probably wasn't broken in the first place.

It's more than that she isn't internationally-famous and touring the country with her two colorful best friends and smiling at cartoon impressions of herself on the subway and getting magazine articles written about what her favorite kind of cheese is and singing onstage and having lights and camera flashes shoved in her face. It's more than that she only has her brothers and a worn pink teddy bear for company. It's just that she feels like she's not even human anymore.

Certainly, by _her _standards, she's human. But in the bigger picture...who gives a damn about what _she_ thinks?

She's not an amused god, laughing at the misfortunes of foolish mortals. She's not a pitiful, sniveling creature hungrily searching for a sliver of sympathy and a stale bread heel.

She's the sole inhabitant of another medium, a world of darkness with a fuzzy window that crackles like a broken record to the bright and happy world her brothers live in, where she floats above existence itself as a ghost-like apparition.

No one sees her. Perhaps they feel her haunting presence, but never acknowledge it, never get the overwhelming urge to grin and wave and shout a warm salutation to the stars.

She's on a train that's already left the station; her pale face pressed to the frosty glass, watching as no one cared and she vanished from their lives- from a beautiful world that's not anymore beautiful with her in it.

Himari isn't resentful, because she understands.

She's a fluke in the process of evolution- a lab rat that was used to test the next potential advancement for the _homo sapien_, one tossed away like a crushed soda cup on a windy pavement. She's nothing more than a soul among billions of other souls- the world's going to continue orbiting the sun like always after her consciousness has been dissipated and scratched onto a slab of marble. She's not a genius, she's not a hero, and she doesn't matter to anyone but Kan and Sho and Ringo.

And of course, she doesn't pretend otherwise.

She's regretful, but not bitter. She's blue, but not red. She's alone, but not lonely.

She's Plexiglas.

And, as far as she's concerned, unshatterable.

XXX

A/N:

First I compare life to grapes, now the suffering of a terminally-ill thirteen-year-old girl to _Plexiglas_. There must be something wrong with me. XD

I claim no ownership to Mawaru Penguindrum or the brilliance that is The Fault In Our Stars.


End file.
